[philipodonnell]

Speed cameras are one of those things that seems good as a concept but are always abused in practice. We seem to be unable to remove the profit motive from local governments so the only real recourse is to deny them the ability to profit from an activity that will always be abused.

> It is much safer (and should be much cheaper) than randomly placed patrol cars performing radar/laser speed enforcement.

The fact that it has a lower ROI to post an officer+radar than the ROI from a speed camera is a feature, not a bug. It helps control abusive revenue seeking behavior.

[Faark]

> We seem to be unable to remove the profit motive from local governments

As in, "such changes would be hard to achieve currently in the current US", or not possible in principle? I'd disagree with the later one. Redirect those funds to the federal budget and I'd expect such abuse to plummet. Tragedy of the commons can sometimes work in our favor as well, at least if we manage to set up system accordingly.